8
votes
Giving automation the power to detect crime and enforce punishment has ramifications, even for minor infractions
Link information
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- Title
- Minor Crimes and Misdemeanors in the Age of Automation - DevOps.com
- Authors
- Bob Reselman
- Published
- Jan 31 2019
- Word count
- 1526 words
Systems like these are hardly as new as what the author makes them out to be. Speed cameras for instance have functioned in a similar way since their inception. And does it really matter wether a human or computer gathers the evidence, as long as a human is (or at least) can be involved in one of the steps?
I personally think that this is a positive thing. There are few places in the world where the police doesn't have to dismiss cases, simply because of the workload they have. So why not allow police to have the same advantages that other sectors are seeing? I sure don't want to go back to those days, even the author clearly states that about his field. In the end this gives more time for the police to spend their time on cases where their presence matter, which frankly it doesn't for a minor traffic violation.
With 100% transparency in crime also needs to come adjustment of laws. Perhaps we can automate that too?
This guy got fined 450 bucks for that small, incidental violation with no other cars in view. That's an insane number for what he did.
Imagine automated fines for exceeding the speed limit and how that would affect the average person. The thing is our laws are designed around imperfect enforcement (have you heard of excess punishments being referred to as a 'deterent?'), and to suddenly make enforcement perfect isn't going to magically make lawmakers revise existing laws. That would be being perceived as 'soft on crime', whereas the 'hard on crime' political mantra has been a regular on the scene, leading to the insane sentencing around, for example, drug enforcement.
While I agree that maybe these tools should be deployed, one strategy I would like to see is having them paired with an 'automation' violation type, maybe halving the fee -- or more. Essentially the smoothest way to start this off is to adjust the number of violations/revenue generation figure to match preexisting enforcement, and then tweak the knobs from there.
edit:
Further I would like to point out that delayed enforcement/feedback does not work. People need immediate feedback for punishment to work. You don't use the 'stick' on an animal two weeks after it pooped on your rug. There's no association, and it's merely cruelty. This, itself, at these levels, is merely cruelty for revenue's sake.
We do not know if there were other cars behind him, just moments after the picture was snapped. There are other cars in the opposing direction, so it's fair to assume this is a crossing with traffic. Furthermore, should traffic laws only count when a certain amount of cars are in traffic?
We already have that in speed cameras. And they are one of the best oncoming collision safety deterrents we have, per euro used.
This is a completely absurd comparison. You don't punish the animal weeks later because it has forgotten all about it. We humans are able to look at pictures of what we did weeks ago and recognize our faults. How would courts function if we could only process someone in the moment of a crime?
I agree its cruelty, but only if its a dog behind the wheel.
While there's the potential for people to develop bad habits, I think traffic density does play a role in the risk posed by many maneuvers, so to a degree yes. Speeding is actually a great example of this, since it tends to be relative speed differences that cause accidents. I would suggest something like this to you -- the speed limit is 20mph higher than it is now, but passing someone on a divided highway the next lane over at more than a 5mph difference is a ticketable offense.
Have speed limits and fines been adjusted accordingly with 100% enforcement? Are they still used on divided highways where there is essentially no possibility of an oncoming collision? What is the recourse for a maliciously configured camera?
Additionally what's stopping people from learning where the cameras are and minding their speeds only there? It should also be noted that cameras don't pull people over, so if someone is driving recklessly and it leads to a fatal accident, the camera did nothing. I'd be interested if you can link some studies that confirm your assertion.
Generally speaking, road engineering is the best collision safety possible. There are ways to design roads to control speeds without the use of speed bumps, such as narrowing them or creating rough shoulders. This doesn't stop reckless individuals but it will slow down the 85th percentile -- which is something to read up on, if you're interested in this kind of thing!
It's not as absurd as you might think! Pavlovian responses in humans are real. Emotional associations as well. Merely pulling someone over with simply a warning for an early offense is very effective, in fact, despite not issuing a fine! Emotional triggers to memory are real, and a disassociated punishment is not as effective. This guy got a fine and didn't even know he did anything wrong.
Additionally, a very high percentage of electronically issued tickets are dismissed when appealed in the US. This typically involves having to take a day off work, which also destroys real human productivity.
Not only that, speed and red-light cameras can be abused. There are often situations where certain speed limits don't make sense with the way a road is set up, or light timings can be maliciously adjusted -- there are actual cases of these things in the states. You could have been operating in a completely reasonable manner and then suddenly have a 400$ ticket -- as was the case in this article. He had no chance to have his situation reasonably evaluated by another human being before being forced to either pay or take a day off of work to appeal.
You may not be allowed to cross that white line, but what if doing so prevents you from hitting a pedestrian or causes you to avoid an accident? Or what if there is simply no one around - as was mentioned earlier. If no one is in danger, then I fail to see the purpose of issuing blanket fines with no situational consideration. That is literally why we have judges, juries, and sentencing guidelines.
Would that not be a good example for why he should be fined then? There was opposing traffic and a crossing, both being factors that increase chances of accidents, as opposed to your example.
These are questions that are a bit hard to answer on a EU-wide basis.
Why would that even matter? Should we give twice as high fines because we most likely didn't catch you that other time?
Yes, but you are ignoring many other reasons one could use a camera. Road condition, visibility, wildlife crossings, weather conditions, etc. All those can lead to accidents, where with speed control you could avoid them. Even when incoming traffic is not an issue.
In most countries, the agency operating the cameras are not the same as the ones responsible for configuring the cameras. If this truly is an issue in your country, then the issue is not with the speed camera itself.
Absolutely. Here for instance is one done on order by Statens Vegvesen.
https://www.toi.no/publikasjoner/evaluering-av-effekt-pa-ulykker-ved-bruk-av-punkt-atk-article32955-8.html
The summary is in english. Super summarized, it has a great effect, especially on the most deadly of crashes.
Can you show me some research or statistic that compares such solutions, to speed cameras?
I agree the fine should have come together with the info on what he did wrong. That was not what I considered absurd. This is the part I reacted on:
We humans can understand that our actions had consequences, even if the consequence is delayed. When you say a fine that came a period after the incident is human cruelty for revenues sake, I consider that absolutely absurd.
Should we just ignore any wrongdoings that's done, unless a perpetrator is caught red-handed?
That is not a problem with the speed camera or the automatic ticketing system. That's a problem with your legal system.
If your law enforcement tampers with evidence and equipment, that is a problem with your law enforcement.
That's your opinion. What we know is, he broke traffic law, in a crossing, with oncoming traffic. Unless you know something I do not from that article, it seems completely reasonable he received a ticket.
Then you should not be fined. But that was not the case in this article.
And that is why you can appeal on your fine. This is not an issue with the camera itself.
I take no issue with speed cameras or red light cameras, and I think the author was perhaps complaining a biiiit too much. However, I think there's two problematic things which arise from this:
The processing time, as with the authors story, should not be "a month", or any extended period of time. If we can automate the detection, the chain shouldn't fall apart, and systems should be smart enough to disclose something like "record created, waiting for human review", or something thereof.
There needs to be ethics committees involved with automation — the use of automation should not be blind, and should be verified so as to not conform to preexisting prejudices. While "did you run a red light" is a clear scenario, if we were training up some sort of algorithm that tried to evaluate something like "probability of carrying a concealed weapon", I figure this would be subject to prejudice and bias—if trained on existing US arrest data, it would be influenced by the inequalities in our social justice system. (And it's not like the inequality in the states is not a secret—I have been traveling out of the states a lot, and have had international acquaintances joke that US cops are trained to shoot anyone non-white on sight.)